2012-05-17T15:41:56Z Inverness Floral Hall Copyright 2012, Inverness Floral Hall SPHPBLOG What is more surprising is that a late spring flowering shrub – Exochorda ‘the Bride’, has a few flowers on it, and some lovely pale pink schizostylis are also in bloom.
Inside the Floral Hall, in the tropical house, temperatures are controlled and flowering plants maintain more predictable flowering patterns. Thus at this time of year we have Strelitzias (Bird of Paradise plants) flowering, Hibiscus plants, Thunbergias and a fabulous Pyrostegia with its lovely orange trumpets.
We have potted up this year’s supply of Regal Pelargonium cuttings. We have 20 different varieties of these sumptuously coloured and unusual plants, and they will be available for sale from mid February.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry120123-100831 2012-01-23T00:00:00Z 2012-01-23T00:00:00Z
We haven’t got all the bulbs in yet – the mild weather has allowed some of the late flowering annuals to keep going. Any day now we must make a brutal decision to pull up all the lovely marmalade yellow rudbeckias in the central display border to allow us to plant white allium bulbs deep in the ground. They are huge white bulbs and will be combined with Tulip ‘Esther’ and white foxgloves to follow on.

We have a mystery predator which has been digging out tulip bulbs in our wooden tubs. It is digging very deep, neat holes and I can only guess that it must be a squirrel but we have wondered if it’s a pine marten because of the strange droppings around which combine berry seeds and remains of small birds.

The gardeners have been tackling major renovation work inside the Tropical House, including re-gravelling the 50 square metres staging on both sides of the building which holds all our potted plants, and was last done over 18 years ago. Three tonnes of old gravel has been removed by hand and recycled in other parts of the garden and the sides and legs of the staging re-painted. Fresh polythene and capillary matting were then laid over the grid of the staging followed by three more tonnes of fresh gravel. It was hard work but was the effort was worth it as the plants look really lovely on their new fresh gravel.

Good things to see at the Floral Hall this month are the first of the orchids flowering in the Tropical House, some lovely Cymbidium orchids flowering in our No 4 greenhouse, luscious hibiscus flowers and some beautiful Bromeliads flowers ranging from red to orange to pink and purple.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111107-131757 2011-11-07T00:00:00Z 2011-11-07T00:00:00Z
The fact that there is still so much growth and activity going on is a good indicator that it is also a good time to plant shrubs and herbaceous plants. The soil is still warm and moist and putting plants into the ground now will ensure that their roots can get established into the soil before the ground starts to freeze. Many people are inspired to plant in the spring, filled with energy as the days lengthen and warm up, but going to a garden centre now, and buying what looks good at the moment eg Sedums, rudbeckias and shrubs with good autumnal leaf colouring, will ensure that your garden continues to provide colour and interest late into the autumn.

Planting bulbs is another great pleasure and another new beginning at this time of year. You need to plant a lot – always more than you think you need (or can afford), but the back breaking effort of getting them into the ground is offset by the anticipation and reward of the most stunning flowers and colours, from the quiet pleasure of crocuses, snowdrops, muscari, pushkinia and Iris reticulata in February and March, to bright shows of daffodils and tulips in April and May.

Good things to see at the Floral Hall in the Tropical House this month are the first of the orchids flowering, the Gingers flowering, the many different varieties of Hibiscus, and some lovely plants from the Bromeliad family – Aechmea fasciata ‘Primera’, which we have potted up for display on the staging.

In the outside gardens the dahlias are still looking amazing, and there is a lovely Gentian, Gentiana acaulis, flowering in big blue clumps in the Rockery border. The trees are just beginning to turn and the Davidia involucrata and the Parrotia persica are looking particularly good.

Over the October school holidays we will have many plants for sale from violas and pansies and wallflowers for outdoor containers, to unusual houseplants and cacti and succulents.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry111006-142633 2011-10-06T00:00:00Z 2011-10-06T00:00:00Z
In a public garden like ours it is crucial that the visitor is always greeted with colour – both inside the greenhouses and outside in the borders. This year we have used dahlias, gladioli, fuschias, cosmos and annual rudbeckias to lengthen the flowering period in the various display borders, whilst the herbaceous border is continuing to look vibrant and rich due to the fantastic variety of Helenium that we use – Sahin’s Early, in combination with Helianthus ‘Loddon Gold’, Echinops ritro and Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’. We cut back many of our herbaceous perennials around the time of the Chelsea Flower Show (‘the Chelsea Chop’), and this method ensures that we have continuous flower colour until October, as well as reducing the need to stake our borders. Another herbaceous plant that really earns its place in the gardens at this time of year is Geranium ‘Rozanne’ – my all time favourite with blue purple flowers that keep appearing from the end of June to October.

By the end of the month many of our trees and shrubs will really start to display beautiful autumn colour – particular favourites of mine are Cotinus ‘Grace’, Cornus ‘Eddie’s White Wonder’, Cercidiphyllum and of course the wonderful Acers. We did lose one of our loveliest Acers to the cold winter last year – an Acer palmatum - the bark just cracked and peeled off, killing the tree. I am crossing my fingers that another superb specimen which lost half its bark, will be able to make it through the next winter.

There is also lots of colour and vibrancy inside the glasshouses. The tropical house as ever is filled with lush leaves in many shades of green and purple, which set off all the rich tropical flowers such as ipomea, thunbergia, gingers, oleanders and mandevilla.

Our display greenhouse is also looking resplendent – fuschias, begonias and geraniums compete with oleanders, heliotropes and lantana to provide an exuberant display of flowers in purples, reds, oranges and pinks. Many of these plants are for sale and we also stock some herbaceous perennials and shrubs for sale.

I often forget to mention the Cactus House in my blog and I shouldn’t because it really is the jewel in our crown. Many visitors comment that it is the best Cactus House they have ever visited as it is so beautifully laid out and the split levels and slopes have allowed mature specimens of Opuntias and Euphorbias to grow to their full heights, providing excellent contrasts for aloes and kalanchoes. We are so lucky to receive help from the Inverness Cactus Society, in particular, Robert, Fiona, Walter and Rita, who carry out pruning, replanting and provide expert advice.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110826-114455 2011-08-26T00:00:00Z 2011-08-26T00:00:00Z
This is the time of year when the planning and work in the autumn and spring is coming to fruition at the Floral Hall. We fed our outside borders with compost and manure in the autumn and the perennials are growing richly and lushly; we sowed seeds of annuals such as Cosmos, Larkspur and Calendula in February and March the they are just be coming into flower now; we planted up dahlia tubers and lily bulbs in March and they are now rewarding us with big blooms in rich colours.

The herbaceous border is about to undergo a transformation – the pinks, blues and purples of early summer are soon to be replaced with the hot colours of high summer – red, orange and yellow from Heleniums, Rudbeckias and Sedum, whilst our rockery is still glowing with the pinks and oranges of helianthemums. The duck has also chosen to sit on her second clutch of eggs in the rockery – she has laid them in the middle of a Hebe and is apparently unpeturbed by curious visitors.

Inside there is lots to see – many of the Cacti are flowering in the Cactus House - Hibiscus, Thunbergia, Bouganivillea and Plumbago are all flowering in the Tropical House, and our display green house is still full of lovely geraniums, fuschias and container and annual bedding for sale. We also have some perennials for sale – mainly those plants which grow successfully in the Floral Hall gardens and which we know are hardy enough to survive a Highland winter.

The trainees at our project for adults with learning disabilities have been trialling a new crop – cut flowers. So far the bunches that they have produced have looked beautiful and sold immediately

This year, for the first time, there are a series of summer activities available for children through the summer holidays. Information about these activities is available on our website.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110706-144140 2011-07-06T00:00:00Z 2011-07-06T00:00:00Z
The annual treat in the garden every June is the birth of the first clutch of ducklings, hatched by our proud and protective, resident mother duck. We currently have nine ducklings who at the time of writing are swimming in the small pond in our rockery garden – very sweet in the sunshine.

We also have some new residents in the pond in the sub tropical house – 5 new baby Koi carp which are currently too nervous of the bigger fish to come out of their hiding place under ferns hanging down into the water.

Other good things to see inside are the carnivorous plants, some of which have grown 30cm since being planted in February; the many different Hibiscus plants with flowers ranging from apricot to rich rococo red, and the climbing vines – purple Ipomea and red and yellow Thunbergia.

We still have plenty of plants for sale ranging from herbaceous plants to annuals and houseplants, herbs, vegetable seedlings, strawberries, tomatoes and hanging baskets.

]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110603-133050 2011-06-03T00:00:00Z 2011-06-03T00:00:00Z
Our Carniverous plants display, set up in February, has been really exciting to watch develop as none of our small team of gardeners has had any experience of growing Sarracenias, Sundews and Venus Fly Traps. We have given the plants a boggy environment, with full sunshine, and we only water them with rainwater. The Sarracenias – whose jug shaped leaf traps are like the heads of cobras, have sent up tall flower stalks with unusual lime green flowers on them and the Sundews are successfully trapping midges.

In the Sub- Tropical Glass House the bananas are ripening, the Hibiscus plants have started to bloom in a variety of shades from deep red to orange and pink, and we are tending a crop of baby peaches.

Outside, the tulips in the Herbaceous Border have been looking fabulous – a bold, clashing mixture of reds, pinks, orange and yellow. Now the alliums are preparing to take over, and they will work well with huge clumps of geraniums that will flower from late May to July in shades of blue and purple.

Our working greenhouses, cold frames and outside staging are also packed with plants, many grown from seed, waiting to go into various borders to provide a long season of summer colour – Echium ‘Blue Bedder’ for the raised beds, carmine red Cosmos for the Central Show beds and Larkspur and Mallow for the Cottage Garden Border.

Our large ‘No 4’ Greenhouse is looking lovely – it is packed with plants for sale – Regal Pelargoniums, Fuschias, Impatiens, and many basket and container bedding plants. There are also many perennial plants for sale – examples of those plants we grow in the various borders through the Floral Hall gardens.

We also have a range of vegetable and herb seedlings, grown by the trainees at our Project for Adults with Learning Disabilities.

Finally we have a new guest at the Floral Hall – she is called Lucy and is a Bearded Dragon Lizard from Australia, kindly loaned to us by Nick Martin.

Jobs to do this month

• Plant up hanging baskets
• Keep newly planted trees and shrubs well watered
• Stake perennial plants
• Lightly trim box hedging
• Check plants for pests and diseases
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110516-140730 2011-05-16T00:00:00Z 2011-05-16T00:00:00Z
But then I came to the Floral Hall and discovered whole new worlds of plants to love – tropical plants from Costa Rica, Madagascar and Asia, and desert plants from South America and Australia. The more I work with these amazing and beautiful plants the more I want to go to their countries of origin and see them growing in the wild.

And now there is a whole new group of plants that I am finding out about and falling for as we have set up a new habitat at the Floral Hall for carnivorous plant species. We already had some lovely carnivorous plants at the Floral Hall – the pitcher plants (Nepenthes), much beloved by our younger visitors, whose long, jug shaped leaf tips trap insects and dissolve them into a delicious fly soup, but these are tropical plants and need the hot steamy atmosphere of the tropical house. Our new carnivorous plants – sundews (Drosera spp), venus fly traps and sarracenias, are the types that grow in acid peat bogs throughout Europe and swamps in the deep south of North America. We are growing them in a cooler area of our glass houses – the unheated link between the tropical house and the cactus house, where we hope we can create the right bright and boggy conditions for them to thrive.

There is so much going on inside the glasshouses that it is easy to forget that spring is trying to assert itself outside in the gardens. Tulip bulbs continue to push their way up through the soil despite more sleet and snow and the pretty, tiny ornamental cherry trees in our raised beds – Prunus kojo-no-mai, are covered in buds.

Many visitors ask about the flowering plants that grow in our outside gardens and we are now selling a range of these lovely herbaceous perennials that are reliable and hardy for our tough Scottish winters. If you have a greenhouse or some form of protection you can also buy summer bedding, tomato plants and a variety salads, grown by our adults with learning disabilities and on sale for very reasonable prices.



]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110315-125411 2011-03-15T00:00:00Z 2011-03-15T00:00:00Z
Outside in the gardens most plants are still brown and bare but the Witch hazel is covered in pale flowers like narrow crinkled ribbons and looking and smelling absolutely beautiful.

There are other signs that spring is on its way – the green tips of daffodils and crocuses are pushing through the ground and despite the frost and snow the first weeds are appearing alongside the dwarf irises in the Alpine borders – demanding attention from the gardeners.

The guided school tours that we offer during the spring and summer months provide local school children with a chance to learn about the different environments that plants grow in across the world, and how plants adapt to suit their environment. However we are aware that most visitors to the Floral Hall are not provided with the same opportunities to understand about the wide variety of species that we grow here.

To try and remedy this situation, this year we are aiming to provide more information by providing interpretation boards on tropical rainforest plants, desert plants and carnivorous plants, and fact sheets on individual plants. We also aim to provide planting plans to provide more information on the plants growing outside in the herbaceous and mixed borders.

We will also be increasing the amount of plants that we grow for sale and, in addition to our usual daily sales, are planning two special plant sale days to sell the plants that are grown by the attendees at our Garden Project for adults with learning disabilities. More information about these plant sales will soon be available on the website.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry110201-095338 2011-02-01T00:00:00Z 2011-02-01T00:00:00Z
Although winter has come so soon, and the snow and ice appear to be interminable, the knowledge that bulbs will unfailingly fight their way through frozen ground to mark the spring is the vision that I hold on to see me through the darkness of these short days.

As a gardener I miss seeing colour at this time of year but at the Floral Hall we are very lucky to be able to get a ‘colour fix’ every day from the vivid, tropical flowers in the tropical house. At the moment we have species of Strelitzias (Bird of Paradise plant) providing orange and purple; we have glorious varieties of Thunbergia – some with stunning red and yellow flowers, others with purple flowers; and many different Hibiscus varieties ranging from deep red and orange flowers to apricot and pink. All these flowers are set off by the lush green leaves of a great range of tropical plants, vines and palms.

The ever reliable Mandarin tree is carrying a good crop of mandarins and there are lemons, limes and guavas ripening on other trees. I am also delighted to see a fresh young bunch of bananas beginning to ripen.

The trainees at our Garden Project – our project for adults with learning disabilities – are busy making natural Christmas decorations such as wreaths, table decorations and garlands, from materials that they have collected in the gardens. They are also making sure that the birds don’t go hungry by filling up the bird feeders with nuts and seeds and making fat balls to hang in the bushes.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry101206-135416 2010-12-06T00:00:00Z 2010-12-06T00:00:00Z
We would like to have many more boldly coloured dahlias in the border and we are going to try out an experiment. We will plant up pots with tulips for the spring and sink these into ready dug holes in our borders. When the tulips are over we will take them out and put in their place pots of ready planted lilies. When the lilies are over we will replace them with pots of ready planted cactus flower dahlias in dark red and purple. That is the theory – come and visit us to check if it works in reality.

We are also ordering plug plants for hanging baskets and tubs; planting daffodils, narcissi, crocuses and muscari; strimming the wild flower areas and sweeping up leaves for the leaf mould bins.

Inside the Floral Hall there is a project under way to renovate the Orchid area. Orchids are epiphytic – that is they have aerial roots which collect moisture and nutrients from the humid air around them. We have specially designed ‘orchid trees’ – metal poles wrapped in moss and cork bark, to which we attach our orchids. The cork bark has deteriorated and we have been carefully detaching and splitting the orchids so that we can start wrapping new bark, sourced from a sustainable supply in Portugal, onto the trees. Most of the orchids we have in this area are the various species that you would find growing in the rain forests of Costa Rica, orchids that are able to tolerate water on their leaves and a high level of humidity.

Highlights at the Floral Hall in October
In the outside gardens Acers and Cotinus are glowing red, yellow and orange and Asters and Rudbeckias are providing flower colour.

In our sub-tropical house there is a lot of colour including a wide variety of Hibiscus with double red, single red, purple and apricot flowers; purple bougainvillea; pink and red Mandevillas; Gingers and Heliconias as well as some lovely orchid flowers.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry101022-115047 2010-10-22T00:00:00Z 2010-10-22T00:00:00Z
This is the perfect time of year to sow Echium seeds, our favourite annual at the Floral Hall. We plant it at the fronts of borders and as a trailing plant in our raised beds where its deep blue flowers go really well with the silver ‘Snow in Summer’ and purple sage. It attracts loads of bees and butterflies and flowers non-stop from June to September. If you haven’t got time to sow seeds then you can buy a pot or two of young Echium plants in our new plant sales area. We also now stock a range of annuals and perennials along with a selection of vegetable, salad and herb seedlings grown by trainees at our project for people with learning disabilities.

Our resident ducks are doing well. Florence still hasn’t starting sitting on her eggs. We are still finding abandoned clutches of one and two eggs in strange tucked away places under shrubs, but she and Dizzy seem quite happy making a big mess in the ponds and have yet to become truly domesticated and committed parents.

What’s looking good:

Outside - bright swathes of tulips in the borders
The Tropical House – bright pink bouganvillea; trailing tassels of Thunbergia flowers, gorgeous double apricot coloured Hibiscus flowers and the first Heliconiums just beginning to appear amid the lush tropical leaves.
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100518-101524 2010-05-18T00:00:00Z 2010-05-18T00:00:00Z
Now at last it is warming up outside and the sun has brought on all the early bulbs that we planted last autumn. There are clusters of white crocuses around the edges of flower borders, dwarf irises in the rockery, miniature daffodils unfurling their flowers, and grape hyacinths appearing under the bushes and trees.

The warmer weather has also warmed the water up just enough to wake up our Koi Carp, in time for our first school visit of the year. Feeding the fish is a popular activity for school children, but our Koi Carp stop eating during the winter, so we were relieved that the nursery class was able to feed a group of hungry wide awake fish rather than sleeping ones.

The children were also able to inspect our newly sited bird boxes to see whether any small birds have decided to make their homes there, as well as participating in making their own nests to take home for Easter.

The Floral Hall gardeners have been busy this week potting up plug plants, completing woodwork painting to give a uniform appearance to all our fences, sheds and gates, and giving a first spring feed to plants in the subtropical glass house.

Highlights at the Floral Hall this week:

Inside:
Grapefruit, lime and orange flowers (they also smell wonderful); pendulous pink flowers of Medinilla Magnifica from the rainforests of tropical Africa and South East Asia; fragrant purple flowers of Brunfelsia pauciflora ‘Macrantha’, orchids and hippeastrums.

Outside:
Spring flowering bulbs such as Iris reticulata, crocuses, dwarf daffodils and Pushkinia libanotica
]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100324-131120 2010-03-24T00:00:00Z 2010-03-24T00:00:00Z Welcome to our new blog!

Please stay tuned for the latest happenings
in and around the Inverness Floral Hall.]]> http://www.invernessfloralhall.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry100212-143514 2010-02-12T00:00:00Z 2010-02-12T00:00:00Z